There's a lot that I don't know, but one thing I do know is that 2020 will go down as a year of infamy. This seems to be the consensus these days. You may believe that COVID-19 is our century-defining pandemic, or you may be convinced that Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci manufactured a crisis to further their vaccine agenda, but you undoubtedly feel that the events of 2020 will ripple into the decades to come. Finally, we've found something upon which we can all agree!
I think we can also agree that crises reveal character. Yes, crises can also build character, but they ultimately reveal it. They unveil our constitution, showing us who and what we really are. This pandemic is no exception. In a world dominated by social media the COVID-19 pandemic quickly became political. Information spread as rapidly as misinformation, virtue-signalers and libertarians engaged in heated meme warfare, and people engineered masks from all kinds of asinine objects, from milk cartons to undergarments. This pandemic unmasked (pun intended) our ugliness, our tribalism, and our attachment to preconceived notions.
This pandemic also revealed our idols. Crises not only reveal our character, but also our hearts, our idols, our faith. In what do we really believe? In what do we put our trust and upon what do we rely? Who or what is our true god? It was John Calvin who called the heart of man a factory for creating idols, and, despite all the supposed "progress" humanity has made over the last 500 years, this remains as true today as it was when he spoke those words. While this crisis has shown the love and generosity of many, for many it has revealed our favorite idol--comfort.
From freedom lovers bemoaning the heavy hand of Uncle Sam to statists passing enormous bailouts, this pandemic has highlighted the Western obsession with comfort. We want nothing more than to watch sports, eat take-out, and live and die in leisure. When crises hit, we expect someone to pay us to stay home. We hate nothing more than to be inconvenienced or to have our plans cancelled. When we're forced to stay home, we break the internet by streaming endless hours of movies and TV. We rejoice when the bans are lifted because we can't wait to get back to our mindless, purposeless, entertainment-driven lives.
I don't think, though, that this idol is unique to modern, Western culture. Of all the sins and character flaws that mankind has universally shared since the dawn of time, the inordinate love of comfort is near the top of the list. This is what makes Christianity--true, unadulterated Christianity--so radical. Our Christ was God in flesh. The Second Person of the Trinity, He who had existed from eternity past in perfect, comfortable unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, eschewed that comfort and took on humanity, along with all of the discomforts inherent in our broken, fallen world. Our Savior, in turn, calls us to follow Him in pursuing a life of discomfort. As Yahweh called Abraham out of Ur and the Israelites out of Egypt, so Jesus calls us to true life and liberty as we follow Him along the strait and narrow path. The wide, easy road is the way of death, we are told. The hard, uncomfortable road is the way of life.
This is what is so disturbing and tragic about the modern "seeker-friendly" movement. Christianity has always been and should always be uncomfortable. Trying to make sinners comfortable is the last thing our Savior intended when He gave the Great Commission, but it has, nevertheless, long been a temptation for institutional Christianity. The love of comfort is a helpful metric for the health of a church or denomination. You can recognize counterfeit Christianity, or the beginnings thereof, when it becomes comfortable or easy. When Christians are no longer willing to speak the truth from fear of making the world feel uncomfortable, we have lost our salt and light. When we refuse to condemn ungodly behavior and declare the salvation that comes through Christ alone, we are no longer a city on a hill. When the Church no longer calls the lost to pick up their cross and follow Christ, she has abandoned the moors of the Faith. Like the rich young ruler, she has chosen comfort over a Savior.
When the Gospel is sold as the panacea for our social and ethical discomforts, we have lost the Gospel.
So take this time to reflect. What has this pandemic revealed to you? What has it revealed about you? If you are a Christian, you are called to overcome the world, setting your affections on things above, where your true life is. The Church in the United States has much to confess. We have much for which to mourn.
I think we can also agree that crises reveal character. Yes, crises can also build character, but they ultimately reveal it. They unveil our constitution, showing us who and what we really are. This pandemic is no exception. In a world dominated by social media the COVID-19 pandemic quickly became political. Information spread as rapidly as misinformation, virtue-signalers and libertarians engaged in heated meme warfare, and people engineered masks from all kinds of asinine objects, from milk cartons to undergarments. This pandemic unmasked (pun intended) our ugliness, our tribalism, and our attachment to preconceived notions.
This pandemic also revealed our idols. Crises not only reveal our character, but also our hearts, our idols, our faith. In what do we really believe? In what do we put our trust and upon what do we rely? Who or what is our true god? It was John Calvin who called the heart of man a factory for creating idols, and, despite all the supposed "progress" humanity has made over the last 500 years, this remains as true today as it was when he spoke those words. While this crisis has shown the love and generosity of many, for many it has revealed our favorite idol--comfort.
From freedom lovers bemoaning the heavy hand of Uncle Sam to statists passing enormous bailouts, this pandemic has highlighted the Western obsession with comfort. We want nothing more than to watch sports, eat take-out, and live and die in leisure. When crises hit, we expect someone to pay us to stay home. We hate nothing more than to be inconvenienced or to have our plans cancelled. When we're forced to stay home, we break the internet by streaming endless hours of movies and TV. We rejoice when the bans are lifted because we can't wait to get back to our mindless, purposeless, entertainment-driven lives.
I don't think, though, that this idol is unique to modern, Western culture. Of all the sins and character flaws that mankind has universally shared since the dawn of time, the inordinate love of comfort is near the top of the list. This is what makes Christianity--true, unadulterated Christianity--so radical. Our Christ was God in flesh. The Second Person of the Trinity, He who had existed from eternity past in perfect, comfortable unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, eschewed that comfort and took on humanity, along with all of the discomforts inherent in our broken, fallen world. Our Savior, in turn, calls us to follow Him in pursuing a life of discomfort. As Yahweh called Abraham out of Ur and the Israelites out of Egypt, so Jesus calls us to true life and liberty as we follow Him along the strait and narrow path. The wide, easy road is the way of death, we are told. The hard, uncomfortable road is the way of life.
This is what is so disturbing and tragic about the modern "seeker-friendly" movement. Christianity has always been and should always be uncomfortable. Trying to make sinners comfortable is the last thing our Savior intended when He gave the Great Commission, but it has, nevertheless, long been a temptation for institutional Christianity. The love of comfort is a helpful metric for the health of a church or denomination. You can recognize counterfeit Christianity, or the beginnings thereof, when it becomes comfortable or easy. When Christians are no longer willing to speak the truth from fear of making the world feel uncomfortable, we have lost our salt and light. When we refuse to condemn ungodly behavior and declare the salvation that comes through Christ alone, we are no longer a city on a hill. When the Church no longer calls the lost to pick up their cross and follow Christ, she has abandoned the moors of the Faith. Like the rich young ruler, she has chosen comfort over a Savior.
When the Gospel is sold as the panacea for our social and ethical discomforts, we have lost the Gospel.
So take this time to reflect. What has this pandemic revealed to you? What has it revealed about you? If you are a Christian, you are called to overcome the world, setting your affections on things above, where your true life is. The Church in the United States has much to confess. We have much for which to mourn.
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